Hi James,
I had been thinking along the same lines as you have been
thinking regarding Gannets this year until I checked out eBird reports from
last spring's reporting period vs. this year's to date. The bar charts
which display species occurrence in Connecticut show the last week of March
through the first week of April as being the peak for Northern Gannet here.
Then I checked the actual eBird maps for the species, showing all the
individual sightings for last spring and this spring. That showed that most
of last year's reports were from mid to late March into early April and
then slowing down dramatically. It did not appear that there was any
significant difference between last year and this year.
Of course, if I had gone back many years prior, there would have been
almost no gannets showing on the map. Not only was eBird not such a widely
used reporting system, but gannet was a genuine rarity in Long Island Sound
until about the late 1980's, as a "guesstimate."
Incidentally, there were no gannet reports from the Penfield Reef area last
spring. So, report them if you have the time to do so.
Charlie Barnard Jr.
Stratford